Tool Help!

I really hope someone can help me with a hair puller. I'm relatively well versed in photoshop. I've been attempting to familiarize myself with illustrator (cs6 on win if it makes a difference).

All of a sudden by brush icon no longer has the circle showing the brush boundary:

Attachment 101259

Now the CAPSLOCK IS NOT ON, as you can see I don't have a crosshair, just a brush with an x instead of the boundary circle. The Blob brush looks fine:

Attachment 101260

I've tried double clicking on the brush and resetting it to default, closing the program and re-opening it, searched through every option I could think of...If anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it... I'm close to pulling my hair out over this one.

I think you want to have a look at a few Help files in the Adobe site. You've got to remember this is not pixels this is vector and paths the same a the Pen Tool in PS. What you have shown here is what you get from a default brush. Go to the Appearance panel and check your line if you press the Orange coloured Stroke it will bring up the Stroke Panel. If you press the the small triangle to the right it will bring up default colour palette. If you move further to the right over Brush Definition and press the small triangle there you can change many thing. You can go up to Windows in the main file menu and then go down to "Brush Libraries" and load which one you think most suitable.

Any way have a look at Adobe's Help file on Brushes here: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustra...196cbc5f-64f8a

Had a bit more time after lunch to have a quick look for more info on Brushes. This link here explains most things about using brushes and goes further into it than you need but have a read from it and maybe try a few. One negative about this tutorial is that it has been written for CS3 backwards but the instructions can still be accessed the way they state. Have a look here and maybe use the links at the bottom of this tutorial to get more info: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorial...el--vector-301
I would by a good book maybe one of the "Classroom Books" on Illy published by Adobe or the one that I like is Illustrator Wow on the CS version you are using and look here it is published online with the chapters that you want: http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/image...032184176X.pdf